[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: As a director, what is your approach to building a scene?
David Zucker, Director/Writer/Producer: People have asked me, what’s my approach to building a scene?
I just read the script.
A lot of directing is in the writing.
We write so that we can fast forward. We can imagine being on the set and doing this thing and building the scene.
I mean there are times when I’ve improvised on the day like the scene in Scary Movie Three where Anthony Anderson is creating havoc in the funeral at the wake.
I think I added some stuff in that and kind of directed by the seat of my pants as they say.
It should be all on the page before you get to the set.
Then other times in a scene shaking the woman in Airplane, we built that scene really well because we took suggestions from the crew and from actors.
Then in BASEketball that scene was built, I think it was all on the page.
So that’s not so much as a director, but as a writer.
I don’t take credit so much as a director for not screwing up a scene because it should be all on the page before you get to the set.
Film Courage: What do you say to actors after you say cut?
David: I usually say…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
MASTERCRASH: A Crash Course In Spoof Comedy
BUY THE BOOK – Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!
About:
Born on October 16, 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, director/writer/producer David Zucker, along with brother Jerry (Ghost, 1990) Zucker and longtime friend, Jim (Hot Shots, 1991) Abrahams, has established himself among Hollywood’s (or at least Wisconsin’s) most successful filmmakers. Starting out after college, with a borrowed video tape deck and camera, the soon to be legendary trio created the Kentucky Fried Theater, on the UW Madison campus, and moved to California in 1972, quickly becoming the most successful small theater group. in Los Angeles history.
After parlaying this success into The Kentucky Fried Movie, the three conceived the idea that would create a whole new film genre. Airplane! (1980) broke all conventions, featuring dramatic actors like Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen performing zany jokes with straight-laced sincerity. The spoof became the surprise hit of 1980, beginning a streak of hilarious movies including Top Secret! (1984) and Ruthless People (1986), after which David branched out on his own to direct The Naked Guns (1988, 1991, 1994), BASEketball (1998), Scary Movies 3 (2003), and 4 (2006), and others.
David also found time to produce the successful, but somewhat less hilarious A Walk in The Clouds (1995) and Phone Booth (2002), and recently completed a feature script, The Star of Malta, a comedy set in the Film Noir era, and an international spy thriller, “Counter Intellijence!”.
MORE VIDEOS WITH DAVID ZUCKER
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